1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates generally to electronic video game systems and more particularly to electronic video game systems that have hand-held control units with liquid-crystal display (LCD) screens.
2. Discussion of Prior Art
Video game console systems, hand-held control units, and hand-held electronic games having liquid crystal display (LCD) screens are well known and are described in U.S. Pat. No. 5,393,073. It is also known to distribute video games on plastic discs on which encrypted information has been written for verifying authenticity. It is also known to use touch-sensitive screens and pads, in addition to or in place of a mouse, for entering information into hand-held computers. It is also known to use analog joysticks to manipulate movement of player controlled characters in simulated 3-dimensional space (see U.S. Pat. No. 6,139,433) on a TV-screen.
In a video game in which two or more human players control their respective player-controlled characters on a TV-screen using hand-held controllers with LCD screens (see my U.S. Pat. No. 5,358,259), a problem arises as to how each human player can signal to the game console (the game system's main computer) what the player wants his/her character to do, other than using push buttons to control simple actions such as running, jumping, hitting, shooting, etc. In a multi-player game, some of the selected and rejected actions for a player's character should not be seen on the TV screen by other players. A human player can indicate his/her wants by making a selection on a hand-held menu of words, but this is not very natural.
Patent application GB 2,353,928A discloses a game system having a console connected to multiple hand-held game machines with LCD's that display maps including squares to indicate player-controlled characters, circles to indicate monsters, and diamonds to indicate items. Although this patent maintains that these maps are pictures, the patent does not provide any examples of pictures of animated characters with hands, arms, legs, faces, and clothing for display on hand-held control units.
Therefore, a need has arisen for hand-held controllers that display more natural visual information such as pictures, especially pictures of characters, that enable players to control their TV-screen characters more naturally than with prior-art controllers.